


Making A Faith Anew

by mihrsuri



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Family Feels, Multi, OT3, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Period-Typical Homophobia, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 10:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: Five times Mary Tudor disagreed with Thomas Cromwell [originally posted on tumblr in response to a prompt by allegoriesinmediares] in my Tudors OT3 verse.





	1. Chapter 1

1\. The first time, back when he is merely Master Cromwell and she is newly returned to court because of Anne she challenges him even though her heart pounds in her chest (she cannot let such radical heresy stand, not when he his close to the new Queen and to her father) and thinks to hear veiled threats or a rebuke (she is not so secure in her fathers favour to think he will be wrathful with Cromwell and not her. She can never be secure again) but instead he listens with a quiet respect and says that while he cannot agree with her, he understands that it is not something she wishes to hear. 

2\. “They told us that had we spent more coin on the fraud they call relics then our girls would have lived. I can never forgive it.” There was such anguish in Cromwell’s voice it gives Mary pause but she cannot think that heresy is the answer - not such as Cromwell believes in, though she does not deny that the priest must not have been a good one. 

3\. “No, your highness is entirely correct - I should not be so narrow as to throw people into poverty without redress” is what he says and Mary, Mary is unsure of what to do because she had not expected this, had not thought he would listen, let alone change his mind (perhaps, she thinks with some amusement, he is not the devil incarnate that Gardiner seems to believe he is). When she asks why he did so he only smiles (a smile she thinks is a little sad) and says both that he is used to passionate Tudors and that he is thinking of his own two girls “they were just as bright as their brother” 

4\. The two of them are sitting in silence and Mary, Mary has never been more uncomfortable - she had liked him, despite his heretical beliefs and now she finds he is far worse than she had thought. And there is no real apology in his eyes - an apology for her upset yes, but not for the liaison with her father and Queen Anne (Queen Anne who is her second mother, who had advocated for her when no one else would, who had gotten her placed back in the succession ahead of her own daughters and who had let this man father her children). 

5\. When her oldest daughter begins to call him “Grandfather Thomas” he looks to Mary and she can only shake her head at his hesitancy and tell him he should not be so narrow of mind. She does so with fondness now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five people who were horrified (or at least didn’t react positively) by Mary Boleyn/Jane Seymour, and one person who understood. [from a prompt by allegoriesinmediares]

1\. “That woman? That woman?” is what George says when Mary tells him and it hurts, although she should not be surprised - George and their baby sister have always been so close and she knows he will not take it well. “Don’t you remember what she did to Anne? How she flaunted…she made our little sister cry Mary. I can’t forgive it. I love you, I am glad you are happy but please do not ask me to like her.” 

Mary wants to say no, no it was the King, that Jane was caught up in the dazzle of being noticed, of being cherished and treasured,that it wasn’t Jane being unkind, it was her brothers but she cannot find the words. 

2\. Nan Saville refuses to speak to her, once she finds out, except to hiss “that bitch nearly killed your sisters child” at her. 

3\. When Jane’s father finds out, he can only look at her with disgust and from that moment will refuse to answer any of her letters or acknowledge her in any way. 

4\. They have to dismiss one of her maids in the end, because of the venom the woman directs at Jane, seeming to believe that Jane has once again been a poisonous influence. 

5\. “You could have been Queen, sister and this is where you end up - the lover of the French Kings discards” ends in Jane slapping her brother and banishing him from her life for good. 

6\. As it happens, when she tells Anne all her little sister does is smile and say that she is so very glad that Mary is happy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three stories Thomas Cromwell loved and a song he learned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A content note: the first story contains references to child sexual abuse.

1\. There is a story, he tells himself, that his mother had told him, sitting by his bed or by the fire as she taught him his first lessons. Not the stories of knights and dragons, of Robin Hood or King Arthur but a quieter story. A story about a mother who loved her little boy. There is a story he tells himself, when Norwich is there, against him, inside him and there is nothing but hurt and the feeling that he is less than nothing, that he is tainted forever. He has a story about a little boy who was loved, who was wanted and who was his mothers most precious child. 

She sang, as well - it is a lullaby he will sing to his own children, just as the story she told is one he tells to his own. He understands it in a different way, then and it both hurts and warms him because she knows how much she loved him but he also knows that she must have been so scared and so worried, leaving her child all alone. 

2\. He loves the stories Father Gregory tells, the stories he makes from his lessons because so many of them are true but his favourite story, the story that he will always listen to is the story of the boy that would be King Arthur and the kindness of Merlin - because Father Gregory reminds him of a gentler and better Merlin, a Merlin who brings Thomas Cromwell magic through his gentleness and his learning. 

3\. “And the Lionheart loved Robin and his lady so well that he made Marian a Queen and Robin a King beside them in their hearts, even if before the world he would not be” Henry says as the children look up at him avidly. “So instead he made him a Duke so that Robin could always be near them….” 

“Just like Papa Thomas..” says Meg firmly, which gets an indigent look from Owen who clearly wants to listen to the story without interjections, but a delighted agreement from Liam and even from the older children, who smile. 

“Yes my little knight” Henry says. 

4\. He loves many songs that Anne and Henry play and sing - both his Queen and his King are natural masters of both but he cannot help but say that his favourite, above all are the songs they have sung to their children, the songs they have taught him in lazy afternoons and mornings - laughingly exchanging them in all the languages they know.


End file.
